Ning and the rest continued on to the side of the building. They weren't allowed into the main building but were rather taken a long way around to the side of the building that was considered 'front'.
There they were made to stick together with a bunch of 15-year-old kids who all had yellow hair and were already at Rank 4.
There were about 50 of them here, but that alone was a big number in Ning's mind. However, when he really thought about it, the western hemisphere of Nulwurn was denser in spiritual energy, so everyone grew in rank quite quickly.
'Maybe it's actually low. There should have been more,' Ning thought. 'Although, getting yellow hair isn't the easiest job, and given that they take in students every month, that should be it.'
Saphandra nudged him from the side. "Do we really have to take the test? We still have time. Let's just ask that Vice Headmaster guy get us in," she said.
"Do you want to? I plan on taking the entrance exam. That's why I came here in the first place," Ning said.
"I… I just think it's annoying that we have to go through all of this," Saphandra said. "Especially since we will have to reveal our hair in a bit."
Ning wasn't concerned about it as much since there were already a few people with green and blue hair in the mix. However, Saphandra would instantly be the center of attention and which she found very annoying.
She liked it much better when her hair was just green.
'Dammit,' she thought when she remembered that. She didn't want to remember those memories, but they floated up anyhow.
"Alright, I'll do it," She said in the end. She was already used to having violet hair now. There were no more going reasons to get away from it."
Ning looked toward Trevain and asked, "are you okay?"
Trevain was too shocked at where he was to organize his thoughts.
"You know, my father would always force me and my brothers to improve our summon, improve in rank and advance my bond strength. He beat me and my brothers when we couldn't do it."
"Unfortunately, I remained bad at it all, never improving, while my brothers went on to be great at it and were never beaten anymore."
"Actually, now that I think about it, I feel like I was beaten harder than any of us. Sometimes I thought he couldn't reconcile with my mother's passing and wanted to take the anger out on me."
"So, when I was reaching 15 years, and I knew I couldn't improve at all, I ran away from my house and went to the Ranadar city."
"I would never have thought that that point in my life, which I thought would be my lowest, would actually be the highlight of it."
Trevain slowly took off his hat. The hat he had been wearing ever since he had run away from home all those years ago.
He had been wearing the hat for one reason exactly. It was to hide the fact that he was bald.
He had been shaving his own head ever since he had run away from his home, to never remember the symbol for the trash he used to be.
However, after he had found the Oysters and then started eating those fishes every day, he was swiftly improving in rank to an extreme level.
Still, he remained bald the entire time. His hair was what reminded him of his family, and he didn't want that.
The last time he shaved his head was nearly a month ago. He was supposed to do it every week, but after his father had found him, he had forgotten that.
However, now that he had stood against his father and overcome the feeling of failure he had been, he had stopped shaving his head.
Short blue hair stood on its end as the hat he had been wearing pulled on it as it came out. He felt the breeze on his head after a long time and felt the coolness come to him.
"You'll need it to grow longer before you look any good with it," Ning said from the side with a chuckle.
"It will," Trevain said and smiled a bit himself.
The doors of the buildings opened and everyone was let inside.
Ning and the rest walked in while looking around at the massive school and immediately heard sounds of shouting and beastly cries.
There were battles happening somewhere far away, most likely duels between students. Students were running around doing various things.
Ning and the rest were taken to a location at the corner where they were all made to take off any hats they wore and stand in a line.
Ning wasn't wearing any, to begin with, and the rest who took it off. Saphandra grumbled a bit, but she still took it off.
And as one would expect, all eyes fell on her.
Everyone's first thought was to assume that she had dyed her hair. In fact, even the teachers that were going to test them immediately moved toward her.
"Miss, have you dyed your hair? Please wash it away if you have," they asked. It was hard to believe she would have violet hair, after all the only people they had ever seen have it were the Headmasters of the 5 schools.
"This is my real color," she said in an annoyed tone.
"Would you mind if we test it?" they asked. The teachers themselves had blue hair so they really wanted to find out if what they were seeing was true.
Saphandra grumbled under her breath and pulled off a strand of hair from her head. She handed it over to the teachers, who immediately had a student go test it.
They had the perfect preparation for this sort of moment.
"Please wait to the side while we test your hair. The rest of you can start coming one by one," the teachers said.
And so the test began.
